Material for the Preparation of the Programme of the R.S.D.L.P.

Additional Remarks On the Committee’s Draft Programme

Besidesmy remarks written on the draft itself, I should like to note the
      following:

§ 3.“Society (bourgeois) is characterised by the domination of
      commodity productionundercapitalist production relations,i.e."... then follows a description of the basic features of
      capitalism. The result is an incongruity: the“i.e."connects dissimilar, unequal concepts, namely, 1) themodificationof commodity production in a form conditioned by the
      domination of capitalist production relations, and 2) the sale of products
      on the market and the sale of their labour-power by the masses of the
      population.

Thisincongruity, this equating of theb a s i cand most general
      features of commodity production in general and of capitalism in
      general—and the modifications of commodity production on the basis
      of capitalist production relations (then commodities are no longer
      exchangedsimplyaccording to value)—clearly shows how poor
      G. V. Plekhanov’s formulation is (and yet the committee adopted this
      formulation, merely rephrasing it). In a programme that presents only the
      most general and basic features of capitalismand does not set forth
      even the theory of surplus-value, we suddenly “nod” to
      Böhm-Bawerk by calling to mind that “commodity production on
      the basis of capitalism” is not quite the same as simple commodity
      production! If so, then why not add to the programme special references to
      Mikhailovsky, Berdayev, and the like? On the one hand, only one very
      general socialist expression is used to cover even all of Marx’s teachings
      about the exploitation of labour by capital:

      “create by their labour the latter’s income” (end of §
      3)—andon the other hand, note is made of the specific transformation of
      surplus-value into profit under “commodity production on the basis
      of capitalist production relations.”

G.V. Plekhanov is quite right when he states that the words “commodity
      production on the basis of capitalist production relations” express the
      fundamental idea of Volume

      III.[1]But that is all. There is no point in including this idea in the
      programme—just as there is no point in describing in the programme
      the mechanism of realisation, which is the fundamental idea of Volume II,
      or in describing the conversion of excess profit into ground rent. In the
      programme it is sufficient ton o t ethe exploitation of labour by capital=the creation of surplus-value,
      whereas to speak of every kind oftransformationand modification
      of the forms of this surplus-value is out of place (and impossible in a
      few short propositions).

Ifully share V. Zasulich’s opinion that in our country it is possible to
      attract a much larger proportion of small producers into the ranks of
      Social-Democracy and much more rapidly (than in the West), that to achieve
      this we must doa l lin our power, and that this “wish” should be expressed in the
      programme “against” the Martynovs and Co. I am in full
      agreement with all this.I

      w e l c o m ethe addition that has been made at the end of § 10—I emphasise
      this to avoid any misunderstanding.

However,there is no need to go to the other extreme, as V. Zasulich does!
      A “wish” should not be confused withreality, and
      with immanently necessary reality at that, to which alone ourPrinzipienerklärung[A declaration of
	principles.—Ed.]

      is devoted. It would be desirable to attract aa l lthe small producers—naturally. But we know that they constitute a
      special class, even if bound to the proletariat by a thousand ties and
      intermediate grades, but nevertheless a special class.

Inthe first placeit is essentialto draw a line of
      demarcationbetween ourselves and all others, to single out the
      proletariatalone and

      e x c l u s i v e l y,

      and onlythendeclarethat the proletariat will emancipate all, that it calls on all, Invites
      all.

Iagree to this “then,” but I demand that this “in the first
      place” should come first!

Herein Russia the monstrous sufferings of the “working and
      exploited masses” did not rouse anypopularmovement until
      a “handful” of factory workers began the struggle, the class
      struggle. Ando n l ythis “handful” guarantees the conduct, continuation, andextensionof this struggle. It is in Russia, where the critics
      (Bulgakov) accuse the Social-Democrats of “peasantophobia”,
      and the

      Socialist-Revolutionaries[2]shout of the need forr e p l a c i n gthe concept of the class
      struggle by the concept of “the struggle ofa l lthe working and exploited” (Vestnik Russkoi Revolutsit,
No. 2[3])–it
      is in Russia that we must,in the first place, draw a line of
      demarcationbetween ourselves and all this riffraff, by means of the
      most clear-cut definition of the class struggle alone of the proletariata l o n e—and only then declare that wecall on
      all, that we shall undertake everything, take everything, extend to
      include everything. But the committee “extends,” while forgetting to
      draw a line of demarcation!! And I am accused of being narrow-minded be
      cause I demand that this extension beprecededby
      “demarcation”?! But that is trickery, gentlemen!!

Thestruggle inevitably facing us tomorrow against the combined forces of the
      critics±the more Leftist gentlemen ofRusskiye VedomostiandRusskoye

	Bogatstvo[4]+the

      Socialist-Revolutionaries will most imperatively demand of us that verydemarcationbetween theclass struggleof the
      proletariat and the “struggle” (is it a struggle?) “of
      the working and exploited masses.” Phrase-mongering about these masses is
      a trump card in the hands of all theunsicheren

	Kantonisten,[Unreliable cantonists. In this
	context—“unreliable allies.”—Ed.]

      and the committee is playing into their hands and depriving us of a weapon
      for the struggle against half-heartedness, in order to emphasise one half!
      But do not for get the other half!

[1]This refers to the third volume of Karl Marx’sCapital.Below is
      a reference to the second volume ofCapital.

[2]Socialist-Revolutionaries(S. R .s)—a petty-bourgeois party
      in Russia, which arose at the end of 1901 and beginning of 1902 as a
      result of the union of Narodnik groups and circles. The newspaperRevolutsionnaya Rossiya (Revolutionary Russia) (1900-05) and the
      magazineVestnik Russkoi Revolutsii (Herald of the Russian
      Revolution) (1901-05) became its official organs. The viewsof the Socialist-Revolutionaries were an eclectic mixture of the ideas of
      Narodism and revisionism; they tried, as Lenin put it, to mend “the
      rents of Narodism with the patches of fashionable opportunist ’criticism’
      of Marxism” (see present edition, Vol. 9, “Socialism and the
      Peasantry”). The Socialist-Revolutionaries did not see the class
      distinctions between proletariat and peasantry, glossed over the class
      differentiation and contradictions within the peasantry, and rejected the
      proletariat’s leading role in the revolution. The tactic of individual
      terrorism which the Socialist-Revolutionaries advocated as a basic method
      of struggle against the autocracy caused great detriment to the
      revolutionary movement and made it difficult to organise the masses for
      the revolutionary struggle.

Theagrarian programme of the Socialist-Revolutionaries en visaged the
      abolition of private ownership of the land and its transfer to the village
      communes on the basis of equalitarian tenure, and also the development of
      all forms of co-operatives. There was nothing socialist In this programme,
      which the Socialist-Revolutionaries tried to present as a programme for
      “socialising the land ," since abolition of private ownership
      of the land, as Lenin pointed out, cannot of itself abolish the domination
      of capital and the poverty of the masses. The struggle for the abolition
      of landlord ownership was the real, historically progressive content of
      the agrarian programme of the Socialist-Revolutionaries. This demand
      objectively expressed the interests and aspirations of the peasantry at
      the stage of the bourgeois-democratic revolution.

TheBolshevik Party exposed the attempts of the Socialist-Revolutionaries
      to camouflage themselves as socialists, waged a stubborn struggle against
      the Socialist-Revolutionaries to gain influence over the peasantry, and
      laid bare the harmful consequences for the working-class movement of their
      tactic of individual terrorism. At the same time, on definite conditions,
      the Bolsheviks concluded temporary agreements with the
      Socialist-Revolutionaries in the struggle against tsarism.

Inthe final analysis, the absence of class homogeneousness in the
      peasantry was responsible for the political and ideological instability
      and organisational confusion in the Socialist-Revolutionary party, and
      their constant vacillation between the liberal bourgeoisie and the
      proletariat. There was a split in the Socialist-Revolutionary Party
      already in the years of the first Russian revolution: its Right wing
      formed the legal Labour Popular-Socialist Party, which held views close to
      those of the Constitutional Democrats (Cadets); the “Left”
      wing took shape as the semi-anarchist league of “Maximalists.”
      During the Stolypin reaction, the Socialist-Revolutionary party
      experienced a complete ideological and organisational break-down, and the
      First World War saw most Socialist-Revolutionaries adopt the standpoint of
      social-chauvinism.

Afterthe victory of the February bourgeois-democratic revolution in1917, the Socialist-Revolutionaries, together with the Mensheviks
      and Cadets, were the mainstay of the counter-revolutionary
      bourgeois-landlord Provisional Government, of which leadersof the party (Kerensky, Avxentyev, Chernov) were members. Influenced by
      the revolutionising of the peasantry,· the “Left” wing
      of the Socialist-Revolutionaries founded an independent party of Left
      Socialist-Revolutionaries at the end of November 1917. Striving to
      maintain their influence among the peasant masses, the Left
      Socialist-Revolutionaries formally recognised Soviet power and entered
      into an agreement with the Bolsheviks, but soon began a struggle against
      Soviet power. During the years of foreign military intervention and civil
      war, the Socialist-Revolutionaries carried on counter-revolutionary
      subversive activity, strongly supported the interventionists and
      whiteguard generals, took part in counter-revolutionary plots, and
      organised terrorist acts against leaders of the Soviet state and the
      Communist Party. After the civil war, the Socialist-Revolutionaries
      continued their hostile activity against the Soviet state within the
      country and abroad among whiteguard émigrés.

[3]Vestnik Russkot Revolutsii. Sotsialno-Politicheskoye
	Obozreniye (Herald of the Russian Revolution. Socio-Political

	Review)—anillegal magazine published abroad (Paris-Geneva) in 1901-05; four numbers
      were issued. Beginning with No. 2 it became the theoretical organ of the
      Socialist-Revolutionary Party. Among contributors to the periodical were
      M. R. Gots (A. Levitsky), I. A. Rubanovich, V. M. Chernov (Y. Gardenin),
      Y. K. Breshko-Breshkovskaya.

[4]Russkoye Bogatstvo (Russian Wealth) —a monthly magazine
      published in St. Petersburg from 1876 to 1918. In the early nineties it
      passed into the hands of the liberal Narodniks headed by
      N. K. Mikhailovsky, and became the chief Narodnik organ. As such, in 1893,
      it began a campaign against the Russian Social-Democrats. In its
      distortion and falsification of Marxism,Russkoye Bogalsivorelied on the West-European revisionists; grouped round it were publicists
      who subsequently became prominent members of the Socialist-Revolutionary
      Party, the “Popular Socialists” and the Trudovik (Labour)
      groups in the State Dumas.

From1906Russkoye Bogatstvobecame the organ of the semi-Cadet
      party of “Popular Socialists.” The magazine changed its title
      several times:Sovremenniye Zapiski (Contemporary Notes), Sovremennost
      (Modern Times), Russktye Zapiski (Russian Notes);from April 1917 it
      again becameRusskoye Bogatstvo.